One odd and one end

• I'm happy that I've managed to finish reading four books so far this year, but I think my reading pace is going to slow down now that we're into the semester. For number five, I'm working on Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang's book, The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan, but so far it's a little slower going, probably because when I get around to reading it on the commute home, I'm too tired to focus.  
• I deactivated my BlueSky account the other day--I did wonder when I set up my account how long it would last. I guess I know now. I haven't deleted it, but I needed to take a break from it, and this seemed the best way. It was getting too distracting and negative for me at the moment. I suppose my posts and replies have disappeared--my apologies for messing up the internet!

Thoughts on Taiwan Travelogue

I finished reading Lin King's translation of Yáng Shuāng-zǐ's Taiwan Travelogue this morning. I enjoyed the novel a lot, including its postmodern framing, where the English translation I read is supposed to be a translation of Yáng's Mandarin translation of Aoyama Chizuko's original novel, a novel that went through several Japanese, English, and Mandarin editions. (If memory serves me correctly!) 

I also enjoyed getting a picture of Taiwan--and particularly Taichung--during the period of Japanese colonialism. The descriptions of the Taichū Train Station and its environs, the markets, the streets and countryside were fascinating to me. King's translation also cleverly creates the point of view of the Japanese travel writer/novelist by using Japanese names for most of the cities and sites in Taiwan (which she often calls "the Southern Country" or "the Island" in contrast to "the Mainland," which refers to Japan). For example, Taichung's Lü Chuan River (or Lyu-Chuan Canal) is called the "Midori River." 

Lü Chuan River (Midori River) during the Japanese Period, from Wikimedia Commons

Much of the book is focused on discussions of food, particularly Taiwanese cuisine (Aoyama-san describes herself as having an always-hungry "monster" in her belly as the result of unfortunate events during her childhood). While there were a lot of dishes, snacks, beverages, etc., that I was familiar with, there were also quite a few that I don't recall ever trying or even hearing of, particularly because their names are written in romanized Taiwanese (though the Mandarin names are often added in footnotes). Reading this book made me hunger for Taiwanese food, both familiar and strange. 

Perhaps my unfamiliarity with the food mentioned in the book and with some of the places they visited should be a warning to me. Without giving away the plot of the novel, the ending made me question my own relationship to Taiwan and Taiwanese people, and what my role should be (if any) in representing Taiwan (and Taiwan's rhetoric) to others. Maybe it's not my place to speak but rather to continue to learn. 

Speaking of which, what should be my fifth book for 2025?

P.S. This interview with Lin King gives more information about the novel. And here is a more complete review of the book (spoilers!).

P.P.S. Next book on my reading list: Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang's The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan. 

Finished Revolutionary Taiwan; on to Taiwan Travelogue

Just finished my third book of the year--Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison's Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order. I think it provides a good introduction to Taiwan's complicated place in the world today, including some historical background for that place--or its "out of place"-ness, as they describe it. 

They begin with a description of what vote-counting is like in Taiwan--a description that was depressing to me when I think about how impossible such an open and peaceful vote-counting would be in the USA. (Although I was there in 2004 when the response to Chen Shui-bian's victory was not particularly peaceful. Who can forget Chiu Yi's attack on the Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's Office?) The vote-counting is symbol of Taiwan's maturing (mature?) democratic process, but as the authors demonstrate, this democratic process is happening in the context of a precarious state of existence. (I'm surprised there's not yet a book about Taiwan entitled Precarious State--get to work, people!)

One part of the book that I especially liked was their "close reading" of Taipei City's martial-law-era road-naming practices. Not that familiar with Taipei, I didn't realize that someone had actually laid a map of China over a map of the city to figure out what to rename Taipei's streets. (This part of the book reminded me of the article about TV cooking shows in Taiwan that I read a few years ago--particularly the part about Fu Pei Mei. I see there's a new book about her, too.) 

The book ends, interestingly, with an epilogue that introduces a critique of dominant--and parochial--Taiwanese attitudes toward Indigenous Taiwanese and "new Taiwanese" immigrants and foreign laborers, arguing that this parochialism needs to be overcome in order for Taiwan to really move beyond being seen as a "Chinese democracy." As they conclude, "the choice to cultivate a more diverse and eclectic national community today--one that will extend Taiwan's connections to communities and countries around the globe--lies with the people of Taiwan" (p. 159).

Around the same time that I finished Revolutionary Taiwan, I got my copy of Taiwan Travelogue in the mail. I decided to read this award-winning novel next. I have already finished the first chapter, and I'm loving it! (It makes me hungry, though--so much about Taiwanese food!)

Classes starting this week; interview assignment

I have two on-ground classes tomorrow--two sections of "Advanced Writing in the Business Administration Professions." I have been teaching this course on and off for over ten years now, but I'm trying a new/old thing this semester. New in that I haven't done it in this course--at least not in this way or for these reasons--before, but old in that I have done it before, both in this course (for different reasons) and in other previous courses. 

The assignment is an informational interview assignment with someone whose job aligns with the student's expected/hoped for/dreamed of career path. This being a writing course, I ask students to focus a good part of the interview on the writing expectations and practices of the job. I've done this assignment in some previous advanced writing courses (and it occurs to me that I did this assignment at least once in a composition class I taught at Tunghai, where I asked students to focus on how people in the job used English--or didn't!). 

The new thing this time is that we're going to throw GenAI into the mix--(how) are the interviewees using GenAI as part of their work? What are the implications, if any, for what students should be learning in an "Advanced Writing in the Business Administration Professions" course? This assignment occurred to me last semester after running into a previous student from ten years ago who was telling me about how the company she works for has its own proprietary ChatGPT-like system that employees are expected to use to write letters to clients. She hates it--it writes sentences that are too long. I want to get a sense of how widespread this is, and I want students to learn about it, too.

I attended an online discussion today on "Scaffolding GenAI Conversation in Your Courses," and one of the things that came out of it is that, perhaps not surprisingly, faculty are taking very different approaches to how or whether to allow students to use GenAI in their work. I got the sense from the discussion, for example, that while in my writing classes, learning how to synthesize sources is an important practice that I want students to work on without help from AI, in courses in some other disciplines/professions, it would be acceptable to have AI do the work of synthesis because the pedagogical focus of the assignment is not necessarily on synthesis. (In those cases, though, I'm sure the instructors would still want the students to tell them how they used AI to help them.) This reminds me again to make clear what I'm hoping students get out of assignments--what they should learn how to do, presumably unaided by AI. And maybe from this, what things might be OK to get help with from AI (for instance, APA citation, at least to a certain extent). 

Well, now to go back to my materials and see if I need to do any tweaks on the syllabus before tomorrow morning.

Finished reading Rebel Island

I enjoyed reading Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan, by Jonathan Clements. I realize it's a general history for people who don't know a lot about Taiwan, but I found myself learning from it even though I've read other histories of Taiwan. It's a good supplement and updating of books like Wan-yao Chou's A New Illustrated History of Taiwan and the Murray Rubinstein-edited Taiwan: A New History. 

It covers a lot of territory in its 250-odd pages, so there are some stories or aspects from Taiwan's history don't get much or any coverage (the 921 earthquake of 1999 is only mentioned in relation to Morris Chang's insistence on getting the power back on to his TSMC plants). But I think Clements makes a good point early on in the preface about the history (and prehistory) of Taiwan. I'm going to quote this paragraph in full. I don't know if it's completely technically accurate, but it sounds plausible:

If we imagine the whole history of the human habitation of Taiwan, up to the present day, as a single calendar year, then humans first arrive on 1 January--although those ancient people have left behind none of their DNA, only fire sticks and stone axes. The Neolithic period, which saw settlement of the island by the ancestors of today's Formosan indigenous communities, begins around 1 November. The rise on the mainland of the First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, his Terracotta Army, and the very concept of there being a China that Taiwan could become a part of, happens sometime on 3 December. Prolonged and enduring ties with the Chinese on the mainland are initiated around Christmas. The Ming-dynasty loyalist Koxinga and his men arrive in the small hours of 28 December, and their regime is toppled with a Qing-dynasty retaliation by lunchtime. The Japanese annex Taiwan as a colony around midday on 30 December, and are themselves ousted shortly before dawn on New Year's Eve, making way for the mass arrival of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, in retreat from Mao's Communists on the mainland. Martial law stays in force until just after breakfast, and the entire modern history of a democratic Republic of China on Taiwan occupies the next 18 hours until midnight, when I am telling you this. (xiii)

In other words, there's a lot of Taiwan's history to cover, even if your focus is mainly on "November" to "New Year's Eve." I think that despite any faults (including a few mistakes here and there), Clements very ably covers that history. 

Another new book in the former native speaker's library

Just received my copy of Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order, by Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison. It's a relatively short book (about 161 pages + bibliography), so I think I can read it soon, after I finish Rebel Island, perhaps. (All these "revolutionary" and "rebel" books about Taiwan!) 

Finished reading John Brown, Abolitionist

I wanted to read a biography of John Brown for some reason, so I asked my brother and sister-in-law for one for Christmas. I finished reading it today. I thought John Brown, Abolitionist by David S. Reynolds was a good study of Brown, the historical context in which he grew up and became an anti-slavery and anti-racist advocate, his effect on the Civil War, and how he was remembered in both the North and the South. Reynolds clearly admires John Brown, and he suggests that had Brown not attacked Harpers Ferry, the Civil War might have taken place much later and been much bloodier. 

Here's a good interview with Reynolds about the book from 2005.